The Bluest Eye: "Spring"

"Pauline kept this order, this beauty, for herself, a private world, and never intruduced itinto her storefront, or to her children. Them she bent toward respectability, and in so doing taught them fear: fear of being clumsy, fear of being like their father fear of not being loved by God, fear of madness like Cholly's mother's. Into her son she beat a loud desire to run away, and her daughter she beat a fear of growing up, fear of other people, fear of life." (128)

This single paragraph reveals why it is Pecola is so easily victimized and why she never stands up for herself in anyway. She is afraid. At home there is no source of reassurance of any kind that validates her existence. Normally, if one is bullied and they have any kind of self-confidence or strength they'll lash out externally and fight, like Claudia and Frieda do, instead of withering away internally. The reason they can have the strength to fight is because at home they seem to receive so kind of love and support from their parents, but Mrs. Breedlove only gives fear to Pecola. So, without any help at home Pecola has no means to gather strength to fight back and instead becomes the helpless creature she acts like.

"Spring" is a fitting title for this section. In this section, the author reveals the plantings of the troubles which surrounds Pecola. Planting is associated with the season Spring. And the seeds of fear planted by Mrs. Breedlove in Pecola explain all that happens to her. She fears her father so she can't fight back against him. She fears other people so she goes to Soaphead Church to get blue eyes so she will be pretty like the others and have no reason for fear. Given the section's title and the contents, the central idea of this section seems to be that adults will force their hardships and pains on children who aren't aware of how to fight back, as though merely planting an innocent little seed. The above paragraph reveals how Mrs. Breedlove is forcing her pain on her children by pushing fear into them.

My question is how delusional, broken must Pecola seem if Soaphead Church believes she will believe she has blue eyes now?